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'Sathkampa'
tells of a woman's tragedy
'Sathkampa' deals with the life of a woman who suffers on account of political violence and is now being shown at the Regal in Colombo and other cinemas. The film directed
by Chandraratne Mapitigama has been produced by Rohan Gunaratne.
Doing the main roles are Sabeetha Perera, Somi Ratnayake, Manike
Attanayake, Clitus Mendis and W. Jayasiri. While out collecting
straw Dharmadasa one day comes across a young woman in white who
emerges from the shrub land. She is bruised and dishevelled and
her clothes are torn and muddied. She cannot speak. In desperation
he drags her onto his cart and takes home where he hides her in
the cattle shed. He keeps her presence a secret from his family
and tends to her needs. Soon Dharmadasa's
children encounter the stranger in the cattleshed and Yasawathie
who assumes that she was Dharmadasa's mistress confronts her husband
with the discovery. The entire village comes to know about Dharmadasa's
new wife. But Dharmadasa remains calm and tells that the speechless
woman must stay in his home. Yasawathie
soon finds that the woman is pregnant and her finding confirms her
belief that the woman was Dharmadasa's mistress. And this shocks
Dharmadasa himself and he begins to distance himself from the woman.
However Yasawathi's hostility towards the young woman lessened and
one day proposes a pilgrimage to a nearby shrine to invoke the blessings
of the gods on the pregnancy. At the shrine
seeing a group of men including a politician and his followers the
young woman recovers her voice. She screams at the politician and
Dharmadasa restrains her with difficulty and takes her back. There
she begins to talk and tells her story. Kumari was
the only daughter of a well-to-do family. Her father owned a timber
mill and he was a strong supporter of the politician in the area,
Benjamin. She had fallen in love with the son of a man who worked
under her father and this was strongly opposed by her parents. Saliya
is a young teacher involved in politics and works for Benjamin's
rival. When Kumari's parent try to arrange a marriage for her she
runs away and marries Saliya. Now Benjamin
who was determined to destroy Saliya arranges to kidnap him but
his gangsters abduct both Saliya and Kumari. They rape her and then
forced her to watch him being killed. It was after this incident
that she stumbled into Dharmadasa's path. With the presence
of Kumari at the temple Benjamin becomes aware that there is someone
to bear witness to his doing. He arranges to destroy Kumari and
sends his men to Dharmadasa's house. The first attempt fails in
the face of Dharmadasa's resistance but on the second it brings
destruction not only on Kumari but everyone in Dharmadasa's family.
Political violence
runs as the main theme in the film. It is a good attempt by the
director who had earlier made two films "Surabidena" and
"Malata Noyana Bambaru" and number of teledramas. But
the film include certain scenes and parts of its dialogue tend to
raise the eyebrows of the audience. One such is Dharmadasa's reply
to his wife when questioned why he brought a woman who could not
speak into the house. His answer is that he brought her because
she is dumb and that he was thoroughly fed up of his irritable wife
Yasawathie. And also the scene of this dumb woman volunteering herself
to bed with Dharmadasa. It was not clear for what reason she does
this. Set in rural
dry zone areas the director had captured some beautiful locations
which suits his film well. And on the
whole the cast has done justice to their particular roles and specially
Sabeetha Perera and Somi Ratnayake's acting are commendable. Manike
Attanayake who is more regularly seen in the small screen too has
done her part well as a woman with a loose tongue. Musical score by young Navaratne Gamage goes well with most of the scenes but in a few instances the music overpowers the rest. Others in the cast are Sathischandra Edirisinghe, Grace Ariyawimal and Damitha Saluwadana.
The
film won seven awards including one for the best direction at the
recently held 'Sarasavi' film festival in addition to several other
international awards.'Aswesuma'
earlier won Platinum Award for the Best First Feature at the 34th
Houston IFF., Special Jury Award (Fipresci) by Federation of International
Film Critics at the 4th Mumbai IFF. and Special Jury Award- Don
Quijote at 7th Dhaka IFF. In addition the movie was an entry at
other world renowned film festivals including Moscow IFF, Montreal
IFF and Kerala IFF. The film revolving
around an elderly man who regrets certain events in his past life
displays his struggle to relieve the bottled up feelings which had
disturbed him throughout his life. Opening with the funeral of the
elderly Guneris' wife the film follows the revelation of his past
which is filled with a number of tragic events including a triple
murder he had committed 52 years ago. Among the cast are internationally acclaimed Joe Abeywickrema, Jackson Anthony, Sangeetha Weeraratne, Ravindra Randeniya, Mahendra Perera, Douglas Ranasinghe, Hemasiri Liyanage, Indrajith Navinna, Saumya Liyanage and Gamini Hettiarachchi. The director Mr. Ratnayake has been invited to participate in the festival.
A film directed
by Jack Sholder and presented by Fantastic Factory and released
here by CEL. 'Arachnid'
revolves around a medical expedition to a South Pacific island in
search of an unknown deadly virus. Loren Mercer,
ex-Navy pilot, is in the South Pacific looking for her ex-boyfriend,
Captain John Lightfoot who disappeared while on a secret mission.
Mercer isn't aware that Lightfoot collided with an alien spacecraft that discharged biological material over the whole island that they are heading for. Very soon, strange
things start happening. As it is, the mortal virus seems to be transmitted
by what the natives call a " very large" spider. A member
of the mercenary crew guiding the expedition is attacked by strange
burrowing ticks and dies. Larger and more lethal insects are encountered,
and members of the group are picked off one by one. Finally, they
meet the Arachnid, a nightmarish six foot high alien predator that
is attempting to breed on the island. As the scientific expedition
makes its way to the other side of the island, it becomes obvious
that it has turned into a tasty dish for the bloodthirsty giant
spiders with a vicious killer instinct. They scramble
to save their own lives. 'Arachnid' stars Alex Reid, Chris Potte, Pepe Sancho and Neus Asensi. |
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